Introduction

With its rich archaeological and historical record, Peru offers an exceptional opportunity for the study of human migration.While Amazonia comprises nearly 60% of the country’s national territory, most studies of Peru’s human populations have emphasized the Andean highlands. The selva baja, or lowland tropical forested region of Peru’s Lower Huallaga Valley, is particularly important for genetic studies on migration. A geographically significant crossroads of migration, the Lower Huallaga Valley is characterized by its degree of ethnic diversity among both indigenous and immigrant populations. Despite centuries of colonization, many contemporary indigenous societies reside in the selva baja region surrounding the city of Yurimaguas, including: Quechua-speaking populations (Kichwa Lamista, Kichwa del Pastaza); Jibaroan speakers (Achuar, Awajun, Kandozi, Wampis, and Jibaro); Tupi-Guarani speakers (Kukama-Kukamira); Cahuapanan speakers (Shawi and Shiwilu); Arawakan speakers (Chamicuro); and the Urarina (linguistic isolate).

In light of the region’s recent pattern of urbanization, this study evaluates the genetic consequences of migration using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) to characterize the maternal genetic structure of residents of the “new urban settlements” (or barriadas) enveloping Yurimaguas, one of the selva baja’s principal cities (Dean and Silverstein, 2011). Maternal markers were used to infer prominent source population and/or pattern of migration into the provincial capital city of Yurimaguas by comparing the focus sample with others from South America. By estimating the proportion of non-native maternal admixture and establishing estimates of a past population reduction we provide novel insights for understanding the effects of human migration in the Lower Huallaga Valley.

Words of power

‘Words are sacred’, Anishinaabe poet and editor Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm reminds us. ‘They can transform. Words can change peoples’ attitudes, their thinking, their construction of reality, their actions. Words can change the world. As can silence’. To understand the literatures of Indigenous peoples in Canada, one must recognize the power of words, especially when their source is rooted in the peoples who have called this land home for thousands of years, and whose voices have all too often been passively ignored or actively silenced since the onset of European invasion in the sixteenth century.

In the continuing colonial context of Canada, where Aboriginal peoples make up just over 3 per cent of the entire population, the very existence of Indigenous words is a reminder that this is, indeed, a colonized land, and that its first peoples have not gone away or resigned themselves to silence. If anything, their words – in writing as well as ceremony, song, and performance and visual art – affirm the growing representational strength of Native peoples in this land, a strength born of both expansive vision and continuing struggle. The resulting expressive archive – richly realized and diverse in form, purpose and content – constellates a very different understanding of Canada than that assumed by its settler citizens.